A vehicle power transmitting apparatus of a hybrid type is known which includes an electrically controlled differential portion and a shifting portion serving as a part of a power transmitting path. In the electrically controlled differential portion, a differential state of the rotation speeds between an input shaft and the rotation speed of an output shaft is controlled by controlling the operational state of an electric motor connected to a rotary element of a differential mechanism so that the motor power can be transmitted thereto. For example, a control device for a vehicle driving unit disclosed in Patent Literature 1 (Japan Patent Publication No. 2005-264762) can be mentioned as such a controller. According to a technique disclosed in this patent literature, when an engine is started, a first electric motor and a second electric motor are rotated in the same direction, and resultantly the rotation speed of the engine is rapidly increased to a rotation speed at which an engine fuel can be ignited.
In a hybrid-type vehicle power transmitting apparatus, such as that disclosed in Patent Literature 1 or other patent literatures, for example, when the vehicle transmission i.e. the shifting portion is manually shifted down toward a low-speed shifting range (or toward a low-speed gear position) during high-speed running, the rotation speed of a predetermined rotary element of the electrically controlled differential portion and that of the shifting portion are increased so that the rotary elements are rotated at a high speed. To protect these predetermined rotary elements, it is generally known to reject shifting performed by a manual shift operation and to controllably keep the rotation speed of the predetermined rotary elements within the range of an allowable rotation speed.
Especially in a hybrid-type vehicle power transmitting apparatus that includes an electrically controlled differential portion as mentioned above, there is a case in which a predetermined rotary element serving as a component of the electrically controlled differential portion is rotated at a high speed by a differential operation during shifting. Therefore, if an electric motor is connected to the predetermined rotary element, shifting by the manual shift operation might be rejected by restrictions on the rotation speed of the electric motor. Additionally, if the relative rotation speed of each rotary element serving as a component of the electrically controlled differential portion increases during shifting, the rotation speed of a predetermined rotary element participating in the differential operation will be liable to be increased, and shifting by the manual shift operation might be rejected by restrictions on the rotation speed of the predetermined rotary element. Therefore, chances to reject shifting performed by the manual shift operation are increased by these restrictions, and there is a fear that usability or drivability during the manual shift operation will deteriorate.